A Couple Of Things I Don't Understand

Since I did not become to faith in Christ until I was 30 years old, there are a few things that have just never made since to me about the church. While driving the other day a couple of these things that I do not understand bounced around in my mind - one of the is very minor, the other one is more substantial.

The minor one first -worship. More explicitly, the term worship and how it is used in the church. It seems it is common practice in the faith community to use the term "worship" as a definition for the time we spend in song or music praise to God during our services. When I first heard the term worship used in this way as a relatively young christian - I didn't know what people were talking about. I thought worship was the entire package - the heart felt singing, prayer, discipleship, teaching, listening to sermons, bible study, accountability and on and on. It seemed very strange to me that worship in the church seemed to just refer to the song aspect. I looked up the word worship in the "New Bible Dictionary" and following is part of what it states: "WORSHIP - originally referred to the action of human beings in expressing homage to God because he is worthy of it. It covers such activities as adoration, thanksgiving, prayers of all kinds, the offering of sacrifice and the making of vows. Nowadays, however, 'worship' is used for any kind of interaction between God and his people, expressed in (but not confined to) cultic or formal activity by a religious group or individuals." The definition in the book I quoted says much more about worship, but above is the main points. Anyway, it still seems odd to me 15 years later when I hear the term worship applied only the time of praise in song.

For the second and more substantial item - the church being the church. What I mean by this, is the church being unified among believers and divided into small and separated congregations. When I became a believer in Christ, it made sense to me that I was tied in a special way to other fellow believers - and that is what Scripture told me. What I came to find out was that denominational and congregational separation was much greater than I could comprehend. Because of this realization, I have always been a proponent of a unified body believers in Christ and the church being all of the church! I sincerely believe that if the body of Christ - who believes he was God in the flesh, that we have a sin nature and he died to cover our sins, and that he rose again on the third day to take his eternal spot in heaven - agreed to disagree and some other issues that are not primary to salvation, a powerful revival would occur around the globe! I have been very fortunate to have a pastor and many friends who feel basically this same way. I sincerely hope that many others who have faith in Christ can be unified by the primary issues and work together for the Kingdom and break down many of those denominational and congregational barriers.